JONATHAN WATSON also revealed how he called in a favour from BBC presenter Chick Young to get a hold of Neil Lennon's tracksuit top.

ONLY AN EXCUSE? star Jonathan Watson has revealed he literally took the shirt off Neil Lennon’s back for a sketch in this year’s Hogmanay show.

Producers at The Comedy Unit drew a blank when trying to source a replica of the Celtic manager’s touchline tracksuit, featuring the green, white and gold striped collar.

But Jonathan called in a favour from BBC sports broadcaster Chick ‘Chico’ Young in order to save the sketch. The 56-year-old mimic revealed: “The costume girls in the wardrobe department were having a real job of trying to get hold of Neil Lennon’s tracksuit top.

“The clubs are normally always very accommodating, but Celtic said they didn’t have any. So I phoned Chick up and asked if he would ask Neil Lennon if we could borrow his top.”

Adopting the voice he has been using for Beeb man, Jonathan added: “Chick said to me, ‘It’s a bit like handing the assassin the knife’.”

Chick had sounded out Lennon before Celtic’s recent home game with Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Lennon was obliging and told him to collect it after the match, which Celtic lost. Jonathan said: “He told Chick he’d get back to him after the match.

“Neil had been having a rant with some fans that weekend, all while he’s doing an interview with Chick, on that stuff about ‘walking if they want me to walk’.

“Chick’s like (adopting the voice again), ‘Neil, sensational, thank you… now what about that tracky top?’”

The exact nature of the exchange between the two after that isn’t available, sadly, but the sketch features Jonathan’s Lennon in the tracksuit, so let’s assume it was successful.

“I think he got the spare one,” said Jonathan, laughing.

“And let’s just say we put it to good use. But every year the players and managers are okay about it. Remember, football dressing room humour is brutal by comparison to what we do, which is really pretty tame.”

Jonathan explained: “We always look out for a guest appearance. We thought we’d approach Sir Chris Hoy this year because of the Olympics.

“It was a bit of a nightmare to set up, but he was really keen to do it and managed to fit it in. He learned his piece and was thrilled to have taken part. And he did a great job.”

Scottish football’s annual shenanigans provide the actor and his writing team with plenty of material.

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But in the year when one of the game’s giants are wound down amid the most unbelievable circumstances, there’s more to chew on than normal.

He said: “If we were sat here last year saying Rangers would be in Division 3 then no-one would have believed it.

“But we have a lot to focus on and we have to spread it about. We’re not here to do satire on The Men Who Sold The Jerseys (the BAFTA-winning documentary).

“We have to address it, of course, but we have to shake it up with everything else and hopefully we’ve got the balance right. Without giving too much away, Craig Whyte and Charles Green do feature.”

Tantalisingly, he added: “Craig Whyte sounds like he has ill-fitting dentures, so I use that a bit.”

As much as the show is all about raising laughs, Jonathan, himself a Rangers fan, admitted he found his club’s demise an unhappy time.

He said: “I’m glad someone like McCoist was manager at the time. It helped enormously. I don’t go to the games so much now as I used to. I’m a taxi service now at the weekends. But the whole thing was just so sad. I still follow them, though.

“Unless you’ve got all the time in the world to sit and watch football matches, then you pick and choose your games. We don’t start thinking about Only an Excuse? until October, normally.

“But I watch more Serie A and Dutch football now, and the Premiership.

“Let’s face it, who would you rather watch – Man United or Dundee United?”

Does watching your side being put through the wringer make it hard to tell jokes about it?

“No,” he said. “We joke about it all the time. Rab and Noddy (the show’s producer and director) are Thistle fans and Phil Differ’s a Celtic fan.

“We try to make the best programme we can, and we do joke about things, but there’s never any conflict. We’re never so brutal we’d be uncomfortable about it.”

Of course, like the game itself, one of the nation’s other favourite topics to moan about is the Hogmanay TV schedules.

Jonathan agrees there’s something of the old adage about familiarity breeding contempt to the TV schedules come the last day of the year.

He said: “But we’ve never really had that with Only an Excuse? There’s usually a positive expectation about the programme and we never rest on our laurels.

“We approach it every year like it’s our first and last and make it the best we can.

“We had the audience screening last week. After that I get into the car and say to my wife, ‘Was it OK? Really? Was it?’

“But this year I got into the car and said, ‘That was okay. I’m happy with that’.”

The actor has become associated with one show above all others over the years. His Watson’s Wind Up Show, although no longer part of the Radio Scotland schedules, has just finished a three-date live run at Oran Mor in Glasgow.

Come the New Year, Jonathan will be starring on BBC4 opposite X Men II actor Brian Cox and Gary: Tank Commander’s Greg McHugh in Bob Servant Independent, based on the books by Neil Fosyth.

It’s currently scheduled for the same slot as 2012 and Getting On.

He admits it was a daunting prospect, starring with such a big name, but that the New York-based actor went out of his way to calm his nerves.

He said: “During the read-through, Brian leant over to me and said, quietly, ‘You and I are going to have a lot of fun on this.’